[bigginge]

I put the manure down in autumn and my wife dug it in in the spring (I sat with my plastered leg up with a glass of wine). Next time I'll check the ph of the soil and maybe add some lime. It's just irritating that the first year we just put them in quickly as we'd only just taken the plot on and got a good yield. This time I really tried to do everything right -and got nothing. Oh well, c'est la vie, and next year will be better.

[DD.]

It may have been better to have dug it in during the autumn if needed digging in during the spring. A lot of folk say to leave it on top and let the worms take it down. I'm not convinced this works all the time and this is a case in point.

Wonderful thing though, hindsight. Hope you have better luck this year.

[bigginge]

Thanks, I'm sure we will. And thanks to all who've replied.

[Christine]

We're on clay here and always have to add lime to get brassicas of all sorts to set away.

[rowlandwells]

you may be rite DD in what your saying about the manure but in 2009 i spread fresh horse dung on the plot without any problem and we had good results  that's why I'm surprised they basically stopped growing this last season as Ive said on brassicas on this site i mostly grow F1seed to hopefully to get a results that's not saying non hybrids are no good its just my preference

I've read read the vegetables /brassicas advise on site  which is basically what I've been doing for years so this year i am going to try another way I've put dung on the plot already but i haven't ploughed the lottie yet till the better weather comes and my plan this time is to set a variety of brassicas both F1'S and non hybrid seed 

also being on another part of the lottie with crop rotation and  giving the plants a liquid feed throughout there growing period may help i think its a suck it and see bas-sis but thanks for all your replies